tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-206985002024-03-14T04:26:15.280+00:00Forceful and ModerateLibertas, Ratio, VeritasFemme de Resistancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730739589910153745noreply@blogger.comBlogger344125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698500.post-49560218234030881232009-02-02T20:36:00.002+00:002009-02-02T20:39:15.757+00:00We've moved!Femme de Resistance and LibertyCat are now blogging at www.newsgeeks.co.uk. Please change your links.You can follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/femmeder.There are still some teething problems with the site, namely the frame redirect and the rollover links. Suggestions/advice from anyone geeky enough to understand what I've just written will be gratefully received!Femme de Resistancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730739589910153745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698500.post-14898311976724018522009-01-31T19:22:00.002+00:002009-01-31T19:32:15.789+00:00Still movingWe're still moving to the new blog. The blogroll, graphics, etc. are now up. We're going to put a few posts up before moving everything across.I suspect it will still have some teething problems, but hopefully those will get ironed out soon too.Femme de Resistancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730739589910153745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698500.post-83297125452427015652009-01-28T08:06:00.005+00:002009-01-28T08:30:34.147+00:00Hull boy gets goodPrescott's new blog is really good. I'm not entirely surprised since his TV programme about class was great too.I've no hesitation recommending him even though he lives in Kirkella, a very, very posh suburb of Hull.Femme de Resistancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730739589910153745noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698500.post-27665291846210623202009-01-27T09:06:00.003+00:002009-01-27T09:21:12.457+00:00Today's big questionHow do you spend $1.2 million on refitting two conference rooms, an office and a reception area?The public demands an itemised bill!So far, our theories include:They were very big conference roomsThey bought expensive furnitureThey bought expensive artThey went overboard with the interior designThe last image has weird historic parallels. Thank goodness we just sack people nowadays rather than Femme de Resistancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730739589910153745noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698500.post-76528853606262003132009-01-26T12:54:00.002+00:002009-01-26T14:18:03.752+00:00Moving onI'm planning to move from Forceful & Moderate to a Wordpress blog within the next few days.The new blog will be under my real name. No one will be surprised to learn that Femme de Resistance is a pseudonym.I'm going to be posting here and at the new blog for a while.I'll feel sad blogging as something other than Forceful & Moderate since I've been here intermittently since 2003.I'm just Femme de Resistancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730739589910153745noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698500.post-60742835130194283442009-01-25T08:16:00.005+00:002009-01-25T08:41:57.025+00:00The genius of Polly ToynbeeGuido has a wonderful description of Polly Toynbee as a:Tuscan redistributionist friend of the down-trodden, the three-house-owning, multi-millionairess toffI disagree with him, though, where he writes:With the colourful prose that earns her £117,000 basic It's not her prose that's making her the money. It's that her columns 'provoke'. One reason is she is unselfconsciously hypocritical beyond Femme de Resistancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730739589910153745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698500.post-28073331717332530622009-01-24T06:41:00.006+00:002009-01-24T07:24:29.465+00:00Lynne F and scary London housing: a hair-raising tale of floods and narrow escapesLynne Featherstone writes about a Haringey woman who was trapped in a two-room, larvae-invested flat for nine years.After going in "to do battle" with the council, the lady and her family are rehoused.Unimaginably appalling council housing is a common problem in east and parts of north London (Haringey is in north London).While on a placement at an east London newspaper, we were called by a Femme de Resistancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730739589910153745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698500.post-3550501538045128112009-01-24T06:30:00.002+00:002009-01-24T06:32:47.531+00:00Brilliant link from DizzyHere it is:Femme de Resistancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730739589910153745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698500.post-79906803562298018212009-01-21T07:03:00.003+00:002009-01-24T05:55:13.294+00:00Spending our way to hellCharlotte writes:Second, the old sell-mortgages-to-investors trick that caused the credit boom and subsequent credit crash is being reborn with Brown's own version of the US's Freddie Mac, where the Bank of England will swap these mortgages for Government bonds, created by printing money, which it will then sell on. It will also insure against losses - in return for banks agreeing to Government Femme de Resistancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730739589910153745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698500.post-33796893587272184532009-01-19T08:19:00.003+00:002009-01-19T08:44:48.866+00:00Optimists of the weekThese chaps who are trying to advertise two-bedroom flats in Chelsea at £950,000 in a recession.Why optimistic, you say? Even non-Londoners know Chelsea is expensive (no idea why, but still).Well, the flats are located at the council estate end of the famous King's Road 20 minutes bus journey from the nearest underground or rail station. Despite Sloane Square tube (at the other end of the King's Femme de Resistancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730739589910153745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698500.post-13556648574432508762009-01-18T07:30:00.004+00:002009-01-18T08:17:33.346+00:00Some of today's most interesting links......In my opinion, anyway.The News of the World on loan sharks (29.9% APR plus extras)Polly Toynbee wrote about rent-to-buy stores in Hard Work (which is a surprisingly good book) in 2003 and it seems nothing much has changed since.John Redwood's interesting ripost to the Government's "bad bank" ideaI think he writes his own blog. You can read about the Government's proposals here.And some of Femme de Resistancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730739589910153745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698500.post-59929181762391220022009-01-17T11:19:00.003+00:002009-01-17T12:24:53.852+00:00Translating GuidoIn between spreading scurrilous gossip about the government and overusing the "c"-word, Guido Fawkes makes the occasional sensible post about financial markets. Unfortunately, he does so in the lingo of willy-waving trader types (he worked for a hedge fund before losing it all after falling out with his business partner, so this is probably the lingo he used in the office). Femme-de-Resistance LibertyCathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11327971200259765958noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698500.post-72202154811645337842009-01-17T08:21:00.008+00:002009-01-17T09:08:26.555+00:00A long, incoherent rant about LabourListLabourList is making me really, really angry. Why? Because Labour activists have wanted a decent aggregate/group blog for ages.LabourList came along and it's so woefully inadequate that it makes me want to scream. I feel aggrieved on behalf of Labour activists everywhere. I'm so annoyed that *I* would produce a decent version of LabourList if I could program CSS well enough to code a Wordpress Femme de Resistancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730739589910153745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698500.post-19506751902485819342009-01-17T07:10:00.009+00:002009-01-17T08:21:48.891+00:00A huge welcome to LabouristLet's give a big hand to Labourist. It's a beautifully designed website hosting the same content as the widely derided LabourList, but without the excessive comment moderation.But how long will this copyright statement stay on LabourList before being tightened up:"All content is the copyright of LabourList but we give permission for its use, unless otherwise stated."Is there anything Labourlist Femme de Resistancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730739589910153745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698500.post-60017002316051815552009-01-16T15:05:00.006+00:002009-01-16T15:39:43.057+00:00A postmodern momentYou learn something new everyday. Today I realised there was a community of people who blog about blogging. Take this man, for example. Or this bloke.It has this weird, self-referential quality that I can only describe as depressingly postmodern. Why blog about knitting, cats, Gaza or British politics when you can write about the act of blogging? You can even twitter about twittering. Or blog Femme de Resistancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730739589910153745noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698500.post-74022276387305069882009-01-15T09:16:00.002+00:002009-01-15T09:29:55.904+00:00My Godawful LifeWhile here, I'll plug this book, which may be the funniest book ever written. J. Crow, UK, doesn't agree with me, but he admits to relishing reading about the misery of others so I can safely ignore him.It's a riotous spoof of the misery memoirs that have littered book shelves in recent years. It starts utterly ridiculous and never lets up. It has a strange resemblance to In Bruges - it's in veryFemme de Resistancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730739589910153745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698500.post-41220457985921610912009-01-15T08:37:00.005+00:002009-01-15T09:15:22.916+00:00Yes, the left can be funny!Mark Thomas is a one-man wrecking ball to the myth that left-wingers aren't funny. It takes real skill to write a hard-hitting book about worker exploitation and human rights abuse, which is also entertaining, balanced and unpreachy. The humour is pitch black in places, e.g.'These are for you,' says Luis Eduardo, handing over a bundle of photocopied death threats. Not a traditional parting by Femme de Resistancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730739589910153745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698500.post-2136921828489421072009-01-14T09:56:00.000+00:002009-01-14T09:57:17.543+00:00The funniest art hoax everSheer genius...Femme de Resistancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730739589910153745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698500.post-63135451010080235652009-01-14T07:24:00.007+00:002009-01-14T08:25:31.457+00:00Great minds think alike...... And apparently so do Peter Oborne and I. He says in the Mail that:“not a single member of the Cabinet has ever occupied a wealth-creating job.”I did a similar exercise just a few days ago when I estimated that around one-third of contributors to LabourList had worked in something besides PR, journalism, think tanks or for the Labour Party.There is a distinction between this and 'Femme de Resistancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730739589910153745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698500.post-55448919410834517772009-01-13T06:40:00.005+00:002009-01-13T06:58:07.953+00:00Spiraling downwardsA treat for anyone who enjoys Downfall mash-ups and, erm, investment banking.This is a mini-series using clips from the 2004 film depicting the final days of Nazi Germany to tell the story of an investment bank slowly going bust after it buys dodgy financial products shortly before the start of the Credit Crunch. I think that's the problem anyway - "The Spiral" starts shortly after the products Femme de Resistancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730739589910153745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698500.post-17533021871669365982009-01-13T06:21:00.004+00:002009-01-13T07:13:55.036+00:00Journalism: Rumours of its death (short version)Yesterday's post was a bit long so I've decided to create a bulleted summary of the main points. IntroductionDoomsayers say declining newspaper sales and the many visitors to big blogs like Guido shows professional journalism is dead. They say that:The internet means people can read content that they previously paid for, for free, putting print newspaper and magazines out of businessBloggers can Femme de Resistancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730739589910153745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698500.post-4667885638390497362009-01-12T07:47:00.003+00:002009-01-12T10:28:25.162+00:00Journalism: Rumours of its death are greatly exaggeratedAnother day, another report of declining newspaper circulations. It's statistics like these that produce the endless flood of articles and books about the end of professional journalists, the informed citizen and, even, modern culture.Cinema never died - it just went digitalI'm just old enough to remember when VHS video recorders became cheap. Likewise when computer consoles and wide-screen TVs Femme de Resistancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730739589910153745noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698500.post-18172044860784068482009-01-11T09:23:00.007+00:002009-01-11T11:31:29.210+00:00LabourList: Or how to have a career outside manufacturing, agriculture and services...A few days ago I blogged about Peter Oborne's "The Triumph of the Political Class".This book claims the UK is run by an alliance of professional politicians, supportive journalists and advertising/marketing professionals. Unlike the old Establishment, who had successful careers before entering politics, the political class devote their lives to politics. The temptation to cling to power and Femme de Resistancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730739589910153745noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698500.post-65618872615106846492009-01-11T03:02:00.004+00:002009-01-11T03:39:00.687+00:00So who is the bad guy again?LibertyCat and I have just been to see Phantom of the Opera and, like Spamalot, I was generally disappointed. Not with the music, which was brilliant; nor with the special effects. I was just frustrated by the plot.Spamalot irritated me by including bad Broadway jokes and a totally unnecessary token female character, which meant it missed the much-loved bridge scene from the original Monty PythonFemme de Resistancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730739589910153745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698500.post-67649326186746713552009-01-09T16:54:00.005+00:002009-01-09T17:00:07.397+00:00For Apple geeks everywhereAbsolutely hilarious... Apple MacBook WheelHat tip: The GuardianFemme de Resistancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730739589910153745noreply@blogger.com0